Katherine dunham biography dancer

As this show continued its run at the Windsor Theater, Dunham booked her own company in the theater for a Sunday performance. Initially scheduled for a single performance, the show was so popular that the troupe repeated it for another ten Sundays. Based on this success, the entire company was engaged for the Broadway production Cabin in the Sky , staged by George Balanchine and starring Ethel Waters.

It next moved to the West Coast for an extended run of performances there. The show created a minor controversy in the press. Other movies she performed in as a dancer during this period included the Abbott and Costello comedy Pardon My Sarong and the black musical Stormy Weather , which featured a stellar range of actors, musicians and dancers.

The company returned to New York. The company was located on the property that formerly belonged to the Isadora Duncan Dance in Caravan Hill but subsequently moved to W 43rd Street. Featuring lively Latin American and Caribbean dances, plantation dances, and American social dances, the show was an immediate success. The original two-week engagement was extended by popular demand into a three-month run, after which the company embarked on an extensive tour of the United States and Canada.

In Boston, then a bastion of conservatism, the show was banned in after only one performance. Although it was well received by the audience, local censors feared that the revealing costumes and provocative dances might compromise public morals. The finale to the first act of this show was Shango , a staged interpretation of a Vodun ritual, which became a permanent part of the company's repertory.

Later in the year she opened a cabaret show in Las Vegas , during the first year that the city became a popular entertainment as well as gambling destination. Later that year she took her troupe to Mexico, where their performances were so popular that they stayed and performed for more than two months. After Mexico, Dunham began touring in Europe, where she was an immediate sensation.

This was the beginning of more than 20 years during which Dunham performed with her company almost exclusively outside the United States. Dunham continued to develop dozens of new productions during this period, and the company met with enthusiastic audiences in every city. Despite these successes, the company frequently ran into periods of financial difficulties, as Dunham was required to support all of the 30 to 40 dancers and musicians.

Richard Buckle's memoir The Adventures of a Ballet Critic Cresset Press, contains extended descriptions of his association with Dunham and John Pratt during her company's residency in London in with A Caribbean Rhapsody , and Buckle's collaboration with Dunham on a book about her work Katherine Dunham: Her dancers, singers and musicians Ballet Productions, This book was printed but never on sale due to Buckle's financial problems; the British Library holds a copy.

Also that year they appeared in the first ever, hour-long American spectacular televised by NBC , when television was first beginning to spread across America. It closed after only 38 performances. They had particular success in Denmark and France. The Dunham company's international tours ended in Vienna in They were stranded without money because of bad management by their impresario.

Dunham saved the day by arranging for the company to be paid to appear in a German television special, Karibische Rhythmen , after which they returned to the United States. Dunham's last appearance on Broadway was in in Bamboche! It was not a success, closing after only eight performances. A highlight of Dunham's later career was the invitation from New York's Metropolitan Opera to stage dances for a new production of Aida , starring soprano Leontyne Price.

The critics acknowledged the historical research she did on dance in ancient Egypt, but they were not appreciative of her choreography as staged for this production. Subsequently, Dunham undertook various choreographic commissions at several venues in the United States and in Europe. In she officially retired, after presenting a final show at the famous Apollo Theater in Harlem, New York.

Even in retirement Dunham continued to choreograph: one of her major works was directing the premiere full, posthumous production Scott Joplin 's opera Treemonisha in , a joint production of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and the Morehouse College chorus in Atlanta, conducted by Robert Shaw. Her dance company was provided with rent-free studio space for three years by an admirer and patron, Lee Shubert ; it had an initial enrollment of students.

The program included courses in dance, drama, performing arts, applied skills, humanities, cultural studies, and Caribbean research. The school was managed in Dunham's absence by Syvilla Fort , one of her dancers, and thrived for about 10 years. It was considered one of the best learning centers of its type at the time. Schools inspired by it were later opened in Stockholm, Paris, and Rome by dancers who had been trained by Dunham.

Her alumni included many future celebrities, such as Eartha Kitt. As a teenager, she won a scholarship to the Dunham school and later became a dancer with the company, before beginning her successful singing career. Marlon Brando frequently dropped in to play the bongo drums, and jazz musician Charles Mingus held regular jam sessions with the drummers.

Known for her many innovations, Dunham developed a dance pedagogy, later named the Dunham Technique, a style of movement and exercises based in traditional African dances, to support her choreography. This won international acclaim and is now taught as a modern dance style in many dance schools.

Katherine dunham biography dancer

By , Dunham was under severe personal strain, which was affecting her health. She decided to live for a year in relative isolation in Kyoto, Japan , where she worked on writing memoirs of her youth. A continuation based on her experiences in Haiti , Island Possessed , was published in A fictional work based on her African experiences, Kasamance: A Fantasy , was published in Throughout her career, Dunham occasionally published articles about her anthropological research sometimes under the pseudonym of Kaye Dunn and sometimes lectured on anthropological topics at universities and scholarly societies.

The Met Ballet Company dancers studied Dunham Technique at Dunham's 42nd Street dance studio for the entire summer leading up to the season opening of Aida. Lyndon B. Johnson was in the audience for opening night. Dunham's background as an anthropologist gave the dances of the opera a new authenticity. She was also consulted on costuming for the Egyptian and Ethiopian dress.

In , Dunham settled in East St. Louis , and took up the post of artist-in-residence at Southern Illinois University in nearby Edwardsville. There she was able to bring anthropologists, sociologists, educational specialists, scientists, writers, musicians, and theater people together to create a liberal arts curriculum that would be a foundation for further college work.

One of her fellow professors, with whom she collaborated, was architect Buckminster Fuller. The following year, , President Lyndon B. Johnson nominated Dunham to be technical cultural adviser—a sort of cultural ambassador—to the government of Senegal in West Africa. Later Dunham established a second home in Senegal, and she occasionally returned there to scout for talented African musicians and dancers.

Louis in an effort to use the arts to combat poverty and urban unrest. The restructuring of heavy industry had caused the loss of many working-class jobs, and unemployment was high in the city. After the riots following the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. The PATC teaching staff was made up of former members of Dunham's touring company, as well as local residents.

While trying to help the young people in the community, Dunham was arrested. This gained international headlines and the embarrassed local police officials quickly released her. She also continued refining and teaching the Dunham Technique to transmit that knowledge to succeeding generations of dance students. She lectured every summer until her death at annual Masters' Seminars in St.

Louis, which attracted dance students from around the world. Louis to preserve Haitian and African instruments and artifacts from her personal collection. In , Dunham was guest artist-in-residence and lecturer for Afro-American studies at the University of California, Berkeley. A photographic exhibit honoring her achievements, entitled Kaiso!

Katherine Dunham, was mounted at the Women's Center on the campus. In , an anthology of writings by and about her, also entitled Kaiso! Katherine Dunham , was published in a limited, numbered edition of copies by the Institute for the Study of Social Change. Dunham technique is a codified dance training technique developed by Katherine Dunham in the mid 20th century.

Commonly grouped into the realm of modern dance techniques, Dunham is a technical dance form developed from elements of indigenous African and Afro-Caribbean dances. She soon developed an interest in researching the origins of popular dances like the cakewalk, the Lindy Hop, and the Black Bottom. Her studies flourished under prominent anthropologists of the time, including Robert Redfield, A.

Dunham's studies included ballet training with Mark Turbyfill and Russian dancer Ludmilla Speranzeva. The successful troupe performed on Broadway in the musical "Cabin in the Sky," had a week run in New York City, and toured nightclubs and theaters in major U. It was an exposure to a different culture, and to a sense of magic and of beauty they knew nothing about.

In Katherine Dunham and her company appeared in Bamboche, the three-act revue that first introduced to America the dancers of Morocco, who appeared with the consent of King Hassan II. Dunham choreographed Aida in at the Met, and continued to secure her place in artistic history by becoming the first African American to choreograph for the Metropolitan Opera.

She also made several recordings for the Decca label of songs that were in the show. The last time the Dunham Company performed was in at the Apollo theatre. During her touring years, there were also articles and short stories to her credit. While there she directed a production of Faust and established a dance anthropology program at SIU in Edwardsville.

Louis, Illinois. She used her talent and insight to re-direct the energy of violent street gangs through the performing arts. Louis Metropolitan region. It is the only multi-disciplinary arts organization devoted to the study, appreciation, and celebration of diverse cultures. Katherine Dunham was always a formidable advocate for racial equality, refusing to perform at segregated venues in the United States and using her performances to highlight discrimination.

Katherine Dunham was a world famous dancer, choreographer, author, anthropologist, social activist, and humanitarian. Her personal life is a fascinating tale. After her mother's early death, her father took her and her older brother Albert to Joliet, Illinois. She later followed her brilliant philosophy student brother to the University of Chicago.

In Chicago, she was exposed to some of the key figures of black culture and theater who were shaping the s Jazz Age, and had her first exposure to the vaudeville theater, the only genre open to African Americans at that time. She started her first fledgling dance company, known as Ballet Negre the Negro Dance Company , while studying anthropology at the University of Chicago with some of the founders of American anthropology, as well as the famous Africanist Melville Herskovits at nearby Northwestern University.

During her "World Tours" period her company was one of the few major internationally recognized American dance companies that toured six continents. The success of the dance company was also due to her artistic collaboration with her brilliant designer husband, Canadian John Pratt, who was the costume and set designer for the Katherine Dunham Dance Company.